If this description be correct, Lord Campbell should devote some portion of his leisure to abolish or reform the institution without delay.

We doubt whether any human being, not even Sir George Campbell of Edenwood, could be induced to read through the speech on parliamentary privilege, occupying 272 pages. We say nothing against its learning or ability, but we say that the pith of it has been preserved by Messrs. Adolphus and Ellis, and we wonder the publisher did not make the same suggestion which is said to have been made to Dr. Prideaux by the bookseller to whom he submitted the manuscript of his celebrated Connection, "Pray, doctor, could'nt you manage to put some fun into it?" There is no fun or provocative to laughter here, except an interlocutory misstatement of Lord Brougham, who thought proper to take a seat by Lord Denman, and being present was of course unable to hold his tongue. The learned counsel having intimated that Burdett v. Colman was argued before the House of Lords

"Lord Brougham.-It never came to the House of Lords. I was counsel in Burdett v. Abbott; Mr. Clifford argued it in the Exchequer Chamber, and he died before 1817."

At the head of the report of the next day's proceedings we find:

"Lord Brougham.-Mr. Attorney, I find I was quite wrong yesterday; Burdett v. Colman was argued in the House of Lords; but Mr. Courtenay argued it, and not I; he was my junior."

The parliamentary speeches are not within our jurisdiction, and we are not tempted to extend it in their favour. The address to Mr. Justice Littledale on his retirement is still fresh in the recollection of the bar, and we quite agree in the unanimous judgment of approval they passed upon it. A recent critic sees something approximating to the ludicrous in the hope, that the learned judge " might find occupation and delight in the renewed pursuit of those abstruse as well as elegant studies in which he early gained distinction." It is objected that he was more likely to find delight in a rubber of whist than in the differential calculus. Very probably, but would it have been graceful to tell him so, or to wind up with the quotation, "a good soft pillow for that good

VOL. XXVII. NO. LVI,

BB

white head?" Unless we are mistaken in the moral of the parting scene between the Archbishop and Gil Blas, Lord Campbell's compliment was precisely that which was most likely to gratify.

To grace his parting address to the Irish bar, Lord Campbell lays violent hands on a quotation to which resigning statesmen prescriptively lay claim. Pitt, Canning, and Peel have each adopted it, but by printing two words in the last line in italics, Lord Campbell has made it peculiarly his own; "Laudo manentem. Si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quæ dedit

probamque

Pauperiem sine dote quæro."

On the strength of Mr. Perry's aphorism, we will lay odds that his Lordship gets the pension, or an equivalent in meal or malt, before he dies.

H.

ART. VII. THE DUBLIN LAW INSTITUTE.

The Papers of the Dublin Law Institute.-No. 1. Opening Address by the Principal of the Society.--No. 2. Address by His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, on the Intellectual and Moral Influences of the Professions. Dublin: Reprinted from the "Legal Reporter," by P. D. Hardy, for the Society of the Dublin Law Institute. 1842. THE founders of the Dublin Law Institute are richly entitled to the gratitude of their country, if only for the efforts they have made and are making to elevate a profession which occupies a much more important place and exercises a much greater degree of influence in Ireland than here, and facilitate a study which, till very recently, was abandoned to caprice or accident. The Irish student got called to the bar as soon as he could, and took his chance for picking up professional knowledge as he wanted it; or, on his arrival in London, placed himself in a conveyancer's or special pleader's chambers, where he either idled away his time or pursued what Mr. Warren calls the analytical method, in other words, no method at all. It is very true he might have read Blackstone or any other introductory work beforehand; but what is everybody's business is nobody's, and what may be done at any

time is seldom done at all. For one lad of eighteen or twenty who will read a law book by himself without a precise object, fifty will hurry down to a lecture room, and take a sufficient interest in the subject to talk it over with their companions and look out the authorities regarding it. Moreover, we regret to say that most of the best elementary books have been partially superseded by the progress of law reform, and more than half of Blackstone has already become matter for the antiquary.

It is unnecessary to pursue the topic, for it is excellently handled in the first of the Papers now before us, the opening address of the Principal, delivered to vindicate the usefulness and announce the progress of the Society :

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"The Society of the Dublin Law Institute having now reached its third year, it shall be my gratifying duty to lay before you a review of its progress, its objects and its results, from the date of its foundation as a public institution. It had its early struggles and difficulties, but these were of shorter duration than might have been reasonably anticipated; for no sooner were its objects fully scanned, and its merits thoroughly understood, than it received the sanction of those individuals, whose fostering encouragement has enabled it to reach its present position. Those supporters were not confined to the youthful or unenlightened students, who would have had direct and personal interest in the establishment as a means of acquiring instruction. There were also the master-minds of the legal profession, whose success no difficulty had been able to impede-whose perseverance had surmounted each perplexing obstacle-but whose manly and honourable feelings enabled them to hail, with disinterested approbation, the foundation of an Institution for directing the studies of those embarking in legal pursuits, to rejoice in the first attempt made in this country to teach law as a science; they could not avoid lamenting, that in their younger days there was no institution of this description of which the law student could avail himself; and whilst they deplored the enormous waste of time they had suffered in their own early reading, they rejoiced that the Institution would relieve all future students, availing themselves of its advantages, from this loss; that it would contribute to the respectability and efficiency of the Irish bar, and that it would afford to the community in general the means of acquiring a knowledge of the laws and constitution of the country. The professional School or Institute has passed the ordeal of a second session. It is known to the public. It has undergone the severe and criticising test of professional opinion. It has gained new and valuable sup

porters. It has preserved the confidence of the enlightened and intellectual friends who approved of its foundation. It has survived the pestilential attacks of ignorance, folly, prejudice and malevolence. The Institute presents to students the aid of six experienced professors, approved of by the Benchers, and known to both the profession and the public. The synopsis published, of the courses of instruction, renders unnecessary my dwelling upon the plans pursued in the Institute; suffice it now to observe, that students and members of the bar who attended the first, I might add experimental, course of instruction in the Institute, have evinced by attendance a second and a third year, that the time thus dedicated was not altogether mispent. How very different a system the Institute presents to that so quaintly described by Roger North, in his discourse on the study of the laws. "Such," says he, speaking of the novice, as are willing and inquisitive may pick up some hints of direction; but generally the first step is a blunder, and what follows loss of time; till even out of that a sort of righter understanding is gathered, whereby a gentleman finds how to make better use of his time, and of those who are so civil as to assist a novice with their advice what method to take; few agree in the same; some say one way, some another, and amongst them rarely one that is tolerably just. Nor is it so easy a matter to do it that every one should practise to advise, for most enter the profession by chance, and all his life after is partial to his own way, though none of the best.'

“The beneficial influence this society has produced, is evinced in a variety of channels; and we have the satisfaction to know that this fact has been most frankly admitted by some of the most distinguished judges in the land. Independent of the publications which have emanated from the society, the increase of legal works in this country is considerable. The Legal Reporter, the only law periodical published in Dublin, had its origin since our foundation; a work which has found its way out of Ireland, and is now desired in America as a channel for communicating the proceedings of our Institute."

The Legal Reporter is a weekly publication, conducted much on the same plan as the London Legal Observer. The original articles are generally well written; the reports of decided cases bear a good character for accuracy; and altogether the work gives a highly favourable notion of the progress of jurisprudence in the sister country.

We are glad to find that the patronage of this Institute has not been confined to Ireland. Donations of 100 guineas each have been received from Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn, whose

example it is to be hoped will be followed by the Inner and Middle Temple, if their extravagant outlay on the Temple Church has left them the means of being generous. We also quite agree with the Principal as to the advantages that would result to the community from a more extended study of the law; but he must excuse us for suggesting that he pursues the argument a little too far, when, after a graphic account of the light in which law and lawyers are regarded by the lower classes, he proceeds in this manner:

"In fact, law seldom appears, or is comprehended, except in its most appalling aspect. The evils resulting from the neglect of education in this respect are numerous. Ignorance produces crime, and affords protection to the criminal-to the outlaw it offers a house of refuge-to the thief a ready welcome-to the false witness a very general justification. I might appeal for the general accuracy of this lamentable statement to many whom I have the honour to address, and who could, from their own experience, corroborate all I have asserted by illustrations too painful to dwell upon for any other object than the one here sought; the removal of the producing cause. I may be permitted to give a scene which came under my own observation some years ago. In the capacity of high sheriff of a northern county, I was called upon to attend the pillory of an individual convicted of wilful and corrupt perjury. The period appointed arrived for exposing the convicted offender in his degraded position to an assembled multitude, many of whom, no doubt, had witnessed, some perhaps had comprehended, the extent of his perfidy. On entering the pillory, what were the sensations, what the conduct of its occupant? Was there evinced a deep feeling of remorse for the position in which he then stood, for the injury he had endeavoured to inflict upon his neighbour, for the outrage he was guilty of to society? Was there a single symptom of regret for the breach of the laws of man-did he tremble before his God whose law he had not only broken, but upon whom he had called as a witness and invoked as his assistant in the perpetration of the crime? Feelings such as these were (let us charitably presume) to him unknown; man stood the representative of savage nature, in ignorance encompassed, the enormity of the offence he had committed apparently unknown to him, but as if confident of the sympathy of the spectators, instead of their aversion, he rejoiced in the distinguished position in which his conduct had placed him; with his head in the pillory, exultingly, he vociferated to the assembled multitude a succession of cheers for those upon whose behalf his false testimony had been given.